Near the end of September, North Face athlete Mike Hopkins spent three weeks with filmmakers Andre Nutini and Liam Mullany of Absolute Zero on a road trip exploring America’s West.

In total, we had traveled more than 7,000 kilometers (4,400 miles), processed inconceivable quantities of roadside cheeseburgers, slept under the Nevada stars on the roof of the truck, poached multiple campsite showers, accidentally drove the wrong way on a 6-lane highway in a full-sized RV, slept in the crater of a volcano, lost a camera to the torrential rains and gone from Summer to Winter all in the span of just over three weeks.